Once the second SATA port is enabled, there is no reason you couldn't mount a second drive internally. The only issue will be splitting the power connection for two drives.

I expect DVRupgrade.com and WeaKnees.com will offer brackets and kits.

__________________
-MegaZone, Editor, To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. | To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. | To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. | To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Although you can get a good deal on the Western Digital drives. You can pick up their 750GB perpendicular recording drive for $200 and their 500 GB drive is a little over $100 now. Both of those drives are very quiet, especially after enabling the acoustic management.

How do you enable the acoustic management?
What is the trade-off? (Does it slow the response?)

I'd like to do this (I'm comfortable with upgrading, etc.) but I've never done this to a TiVo before. I seem to be missing something- are you taking the information from the old TiVo HD drive and transferring it to a new drive using WinMFS?

I was going to wait for ESATA but if this really is as easy as everyone says I see no reason to wait.

I have a cablecard appointment on Friday so if I could get this done tonight or tomorrow that would be ideal.

I'd like to do this (I'm comfortable with upgrading, etc.) but I've never done this to a TiVo before. I seem to be missing something- are you taking the information from the old TiVo HD drive and transferring it to a new drive using WinMFS?

I was going to wait for ESATA but if this really is as easy as everyone says I see no reason to wait.

I have a cablecard appointment on Friday so if I could get this done tonight or tomorrow that would be ideal.

In WinMFS, you just load the original drive into WinMFS and do a truncated backup. This will save the original drive to a file on your windows partition. Then load your new drive in WinMFS and do a restore. Since the drive is bigger it will ask you to expand the drive once it is done (say yes of course). The whole process only takes a couple of minutes. However, you should make sure you have enough SATA headers on your motherboard to hook the drives up. If you only have one extra, you can just hook one drive up at a time and do each step. You just need to make sure you are using XP SP 1 or later or the drives get auto mounted and mess up the boot page.

In WinMFS, you just load the original drive into WinMFS and do a truncated backup. This will save the original drive to a file on your windows partition. Then load your new drive in WinMFS and do a restore. Since the drive is bigger it will ask you to expand the drive once it is done (say yes of course). The whole process only takes a couple of minutes. However, you should make sure you have enough SATA headers on your motherboard to hook the drives up. If you only have one extra, you can just hook one drive up at a time and do each step.

Great, thank you so much. Sounds very easy.

Could you use a USB enclosure as well, or will this only work through SATA?

If you are running Vista make sure you right click the WinMFS executable and choose "run as administrator". Even though my user account in Vista has administrator privelages when you run WinMFS it won't allow you to select a Tivo drive unless you run the executable expressly as the administrator account on the box.

Make sure you don't mount the discs in Windows, that would be bad and would destroy the boot partition on the Tivo drive (which there is a tool to recover).

I simply selected my Tivo drive as the "A" drive and did a direct copy to my other drive, no truncated backup. I copied all of my shows, etc, and it only took about 20 mins to complete. I also used the supersize option that Spike has created which has pushed me up to 70 hrs of HD recording on a 500GB drive. I just put the original Tivo drive in an anti-static bag and put it in my safe so I can use it again if I ever need to recover the original configuration. Takes up more physical space but I don't have to have to worry about losing the software backup.

I believe it's been reported that USB enclosures will work, it will just take longer to run the tool.

Definitely it's smart to get a drive like a Hitachi or WD that will allow you to turn on acoustic management. You just need to download the Hitachi Diagnostics ISO image and burn it to a disc or use the program Spike provides on the MFSLive bootable CD. I tested seek noise with acoustic management off and it was very noisy. With AM turned on to the 128 setting (maximum) you could barely tell the drive was running.

Keep in mind that most of the drives we would consider installing run much hotter than the stock drive. I observed that the stock drive only hit about 33C on the drive exterior when it ran copying for 20 mins. The new Hitachi 500GB drive hit 44C (and probably would have gotten hotter with AM turned off). Make sure your Tivo is in a well ventilated area if you will update the drive, one user already reported that the Seagate 750GB drive he installed ran so hot it actually caused problems with the Tivo and he had to put the stock drive back in.

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but since people reading it have obviously done this...

I unscrewed three of the screws on the TiVo hard drive mounting bracket fine, but the fourth screw refuses to come out. I can't get a grip on it with any tool. I used an Allen wrench to remove all the other screws.

At first I thought it was a different type of screw, but after examining it more closely that's not the case. So... basically, WTF?

Edit: Okay, so I figured out it's a star screw. What size screwdriver do I need to remove it?

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but since people reading it have obviously done this...

I unscrewed three of the screws on the TiVo hard drive mounting bracket fine, but the fourth screw refuses to come out. I can't get a grip on it with any tool. I used an Allen wrench to remove all the other screws.

At first I thought it was a different type of screw, but after examining it more closely that's not the case. So... basically, WTF?

Edit: Okay, so I figured out it's a star screw. What size screwdriver do I need to remove it?

You need a T-10 (at least that's the tip currently on my multi-driver that I used to do my HD).

You can buy a full screwdriver kit with all the tips you need for these types of projects for under $20 at most computer specialty stores.

Just wanted to add another data point. I just upgraded my Tivo HD to a 500 gig WD using WinMFS. All went well. It's very easy. I did not change the parameters on the WD 500 Gig, because I wanted to see if it would help the pixelation problems and partly because I don't know how to change the parameters (until reading all of this thread .) I did a backup of the original and saved it to my hard drive and then did a copy from the original drive to the new 500. I now have 70 hours of HD storage.

It took 30 minutes to do the copy with 39 % free space on the disk. So figure about an hour if the disk is full. I couldn't figure out how to really delete the programs in the trash folder. It tells me I don't need to delete them when I try to force their deletion, so I just copied them as well.

Somewhat off track - but would this software back up an NTFS drive as well, or is it specifically oriented to a Linux / TiVo format. I typically buy barebones drives for computers, don't have SATA image software.

Just wanted to add another data point. I just upgraded my Tivo HD to a 500 gig WD using WinMFS. All went well. It's very easy. I did not change the parameters on the WD 500 Gig, because I wanted to see if it would help the pixelation problems and partly because I don't know how to change the parameters (until reading all of this thread .) I did a backup of the original and saved it to my hard drive and then did a copy from the original drive to the new 500. I now have 70 hours of HD storage.

It took 30 minutes to do the copy with 39 % free space on the disk. So figure about an hour if the disk is full. I couldn't figure out how to really delete the programs in the trash folder. It tells me I don't need to delete them when I try to force their deletion, so I just copied them as well.

I also posted this on the WinMFS forum.

Gary

I see you used the SuperSize option. I just tried that last night. HAs there been any problems with that?

Somewhat off track - but would this software back up an NTFS drive as well, or is it specifically oriented to a Linux / TiVo format. I typically buy barebones drives for computers, don't have SATA image software.

No WinMFS is disigned for Tivo only.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

What does the supersize option actually do? Does it change the calculation of free space available for display purposes, or does it affect how data is recorded or how the filesystem is organized to result in actual increase in recording time?

What does the supersize option actually do? Does it change the calculation of free space available for display purposes, or does it affect how data is recorded or how the filesystem is organized to result in actual increase in recording time?

Spike might be able to answer that question if he's monitoring this thread.

I used a 750 seagate and had nothing but issues; does anyone know which WD or Hitachi model I should buy? probably just a 500gb.

What kind of issues? I think that Spike said that there were initially some problems with drive sizes over 500GB but I think that's been fixed.

Were the problems immediate or happen after you got more storage on the drive?

Certainly temperature considerations are something people need to take seriously when considering a larger drive. The Samsung Spinpoint drives are known to run much quieter and cooler than most other drives. Also drives that make use of perpendicular recording or that can have acoustic management, etc, turned on might run a little cooler.

There is an entire thread about drives that are recommended specifically for DVRs, drives like the Hitachi Cinemastar and Seagate DB35 series drives.

Finally if you are going to put a big hot drive in the Tivo you should consider how well ventilated the area you are going to put the unit in is.

Seagate SATA drives are usually optimized for performance. And since Seagates don't support acoustic management, you are going to have a loud drive unless you are using one of the DB35 drives. I definitely wouldn't use a Seagate unless it was a DB35 drive. Most of the newer TiVos comes with WD drives and I have found those to be quite stable but everyone's experience varies.